A DISSERTATION SUBMITTED TO THE FACULTY OF THE ...

a) ‘“Nobody will live there on the end of that point.
b) There used to be some Indians living there, one household.
c) One man lived there, and then he died.
d) And then a young couple rented that house
e) and one of their children died there.
f) And once again an old man and old woman rented it.
g) Then again the old man died. …”’
In this example, there are three sets of discourse units, here, in the form of set-up
propositions and their consequent propositions, which are both: 1) someone rents the
house, and 2) they consequently die. Strikingly, each occurrence of miinawaa in this
example coordinates a similar prior discourse unit. For example, coordinated with the
set-up proposition a man lived there in (32c), are the set-up propositions and then a
young couple rented that house in (32d) and and once again an old man and old woman
rented it in (32f). Coordinated with the consequent proposition and then he died in (32c)
are the consequent propositions and one of their children died there in (32e) and then
again the old man died in (32g). With the coordinated structures extracted, the structure
of each coordination would look like the following.
(33) Coordinated discourse units
a) Discourse unit #1: set-up proposition – someone rents the house
One man lived there
miinawaa then a young couple rented that house
miinawaa once again an old man and old woman rented it
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